Battle lines being drawn in Manatee School Board races

Tea Party and Lakewood Ranch-area Republicans have issued a call to arms, imploring supporters to stand up to the “westies” and defend a pair of School Board incumbents they helped elect four years ago to clean up an embattled district.

The groups have left little doubt that they are preparing for an all-out defense of Karen Carpenter and Julie Aranibar, who face stiff re-election challenges in August. Members of the groups say the West Bradenton political establishment is behind the effort to oust Carpenter and Aranibar because they’ve blown the whistle on abuses, budget problems and sexual misconduct, even when it’s involved Manatee High School and its flagship football program.

“This is about the westies,” Tea Party Manatee member Steve Vernon announced to his members at a meeting last week. “The west Manatee, ol’ boy network is essentially aggravated at (superintendent) Rick Mills, Karen and Julie. And about the way their coach is being treated.”

Political players have met in West Bradenton to talk about recruiting candidates such as Frank Brunner to run for the School Board against Carpenter. But it’s not western Manatee forces trying to go to battle with the east for power, said former board member Harry Kinnan, brother of Manatee High football coach Joe Kinnan.

Harry Kinnan, who is backing Brunner, said his frustration with the current board isn’t about east versus west as much as it’s about how the district is being run. But he’s also not pleased with how he feels his family’s legacy has been damaged by those now in power.

“They’ve attacked my family,” Harry said in reference to his brother Joe and his mother, Marjorie Kinnan, who served on the School Board for 16 years.

If Carpenter and Aranibar — Mills’ strongest advocates — are ousted, opponents of Mills could secure enough votes to force him out as superintendent.

Whether the races are viewed as a geographical split or a battle of Old Guard versus New Order, the drama and the fault lines show that the contest for control of the school system over the next 60 days will be about more than the classrooms.

Brunner, a former Manatee High football player and onetime School Board member, is trying to unseat Carpenter, a former school teacher first elected in 2010. Brunner is a former district employee, whose wife is an assistant principal in the district.

In another race, former Manatee Technical Institute director Mary Cantrell, whose job was eliminated through budget cuts, filed to take on Aranibar, a Lakewood Ranch parent elected in 2010. That race also includes Marine veteran Les Nichols and a former Bradenton city commissioner, James Golden.

And in the third race, Manatee High teacher Charlie Kennedy is taking on Rodney Jones, a Manatee High graduate and a member of the citizens’ budget advisory committee. The candidates are vying to replace Barbara Harvey, who is not seeking re-election.

Brunner said the race isn’t about West Bradenton battling with East Manatee, which is growing fast in both population and political clout.

Rather, Brunner said his campaign is about reversing the district’s image and problems that he said have gotten worse over the last two years under the current administration and board.

“Four years ago, we didn’t have quite the problems we have now,” Brunner told the Tea Party Manatee group at a meeting on Thursday night. “In the last four years, the axles have fallen off.”

But Carpenter told the East Manatee Republican Club last week that her critics are clearly unhappy with reforms the district has had to undertake to repair the district’s “grossly mismanaged” finances. She said if she’s guilty of anything, it’s confronting people who allowed the district’s problems to fester for years.

“I stood up to them, and I wouldn’t back down,” Carpenter said.

Carpenter said she and Aranibar helped uncover financial problems whose roots predate their membership on the board.

“You can’t blame the people who brought the problems to light,” Carpenter told the Republican Club. “We need to blow the whistle on these problems.”

To drive home that message, Carpenter is handing out whistles and compasses to supporters so they can “blow the whistle” on fraud and abuse and find moral direction.

In September 2012, after a stunning multimillion-dollar budget deficit was uncovered dating back to 2005, the superintendent at the time, Tim McGonegal, resigned.

Since that time, the board and Mills, who was hired in 2013, have been cutting spending.

But Brunner defended McGonegal during a recent speech before the Tea Party Manatee group.

“At least he was honest,” Brunner told more than 60 people at the meeting last week. “There was incompetence, there were things that were not caught. But he was honest about it.”

At the same time that the district has faced huge financial struggles, it has been awash in controversy surrounding battery charges against Rod Frazier, a former assistant coach for the Manatee High School football team. Last week Manatee High assistant principal Gregg Faller was found guilty of a misdemeanor count of failure to report child abuse related to Frazier’s case.

Frazier pleaded no contest to four misdemeanor counts of battery against former students and employees on April 30.

Joe Kinnan resigned as athletic director at Manatee on Dec. 6 after the district released a report saying Kinnan lied during another investigation, involving former baseball coach Dwyane Strong. The report said Kinnan allowed Strong to coach without proper certification and helped use school money to support Strong’s private baseball business.

On Friday, Kinnan announced he was taking a leave of absence, partly because of the turmoil in the district.

Aranibar told the East Manatee Republican Club last week that she is a threat to the old West Bradenton power structuree because she’s willing to ask why Manatee High gets special treatment and call people out on safety issues.

“We don’t have one high school in this county, we have six,” Aranibar said.

Aranibar said that for years in Manatee County, funding didn’t follow where the student growth and population went. Instead, Manatee High received preferential treatment to the detriment of other schools, including Lakewood Ranch High, where overcrowding necessitates the use of portable classrooms.

In addition, she said an insiders’ club gave jobs and administrative positions to people based on relationships rather than qualifications. Aranibar said the system was unfair to school personnel and children.

Cantrell, one of Aranibar’s opponents, did not return a phone call seeking comment on her campaign.

Though the candidates must reside in specific districts, the races are countywide. The winners serve four-year terms that pay about $36,000 a year. Neither Cantrell or Brunner lived in the districts’ seats they decided to seek before deciding to run, but both have listed addresses in the new districts where they would be required to live if they win.

The campaigns will heat up quickly. While election day is Aug. 26, absentee voting begins in about a month, with early voting starting Aug. 16.

Jeremy Wallace

Jeremy Wallace has covered politics for more than 15 years.
He can be reached by email or call (941) 361-4966.
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Last modified: June 22, 2014
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